John Watson, Deceased
by thewriterthatrights
Summary: John was broken. That was all he could use to describe it. Broken. He felt like a clock without a gear, or a kettle that didn't even whistle anymore. John was like the type of scrap metal that just needed to be buried. So he was. An angsty post-TRF story, just in case you wanted to cry today. TRIGGER WARNING


It was like a carpet had been pulled out from under his feet, but there was nothing underneath to catch him.

So John fell.

And fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Until he hit the bottom.

John was deaf, blind, mute.

Numb.

John was broken.

That was all he could use to describe it. Broken.

He felt like a clock without a gear, or a kettle that didn't even whistle anymore. Why, then, did no one even give him the consideration to throw him out? There was no use in keeping something that could not be fixed.

John was not the special type of damaged goods. He was not beautiful in the eyes of some strange collector, nor was he a time-worn relic to be respected.

John was like the type of scrap metal that just needed burying; a solid mass, marred by too much (or too little?) use. He couldn't be glued together to create something beautiful. There wasn't even any use in melting him down.

He could not be shifted to a different state in order to become useful once again. There was no flame hot enough to make him reach boiling point. He was colder than anything had ever been before. John was unmoving and unchanging from his tarnished existence.

At first, they had tried to move him with a gentle hand and a sad smile. It had not worked. There he stayed; cold, numb, and rigidly solitary.

"You're just a damn machine, John! Where's your fire? Where's your mind?" The words reverberated in his head deafeningly, but made no difference to his frozen actions.

It was fruitless. No matter their efforts, John would remain where he began. He was alone in his void of darkness. Frozen by his own stagnant mind.

But it was better this way, to be numb. Better than he had felt at first.

So they gave up on him.

Then he stopped thinking, too. His memories guided him through existence: waking, eating, sleeping. The relentless monotony threatened to suffocate him, so he blocked it out. The life he lived required no skill, emotion, or understanding. Why would he want to understand, anyway? What point was there in understanding something that would drive him mad?

Before all of this, he had often said, "Better dead than mad."

He was not dead. Nor was he mad. Both these things he knew and understood. But then what was this existence he was leading?

Absolute conformity, solitude, detachment. He was a shell of his former self. When he had thought so much after that day, he realized that it had not only taken one victim, but two. He rarely allowed himself to process anything now. He saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing.

It was better than constant suffering.

John knew that this would not be what He would have wanted for him. Too bad they were both gone now.

John Watson was dead and gone.

He opened his laptop, waiting patiently as the screen fizzed to life before him. He took a moment to allow his consciousness to surface, pain seeping into every part of his body as he opened himself to the waiting flames.

Every word he had written, every case they had solved, and every passing memory began to resurface as he let his mind go out of control. After three years of just holding it together, bursting at the seams, it was almost nice to feel the familiar burn of sadness. So he waited. And listened.

Outside his window, the sun had long set. He listened carefully as Mrs. Hudson made her nightly rounds before going to bed. He walked slowly around the flat, just letting his fingers graze over every surface. Tears fell from his eyes willingly, seeming strangely at home among his tired features and rough cheeks.

He suddenly came upon the door. _The _door.

His door.

So he opened it and stepped inside. For the first time in two years, he opened the floodgate for his memories and senses. Every few seconds, he would be hit with a fresh, stinging memory. His eyes would cloud over as he saw the face of the only person that had mattered in his life, would stumble across the wood floor as he began to smell the lingering scent that was undeniably _him._

_Sherlock._ It almost felt soothing. _Sherlock. _The name began to bubble under his skin, growing larger and larger until it began to tumble from his lips.

"Sherlock," John rasped, for the first time in three years, as the name blossomed in the small room, hovering for a moment in the air before seeming to lift John to life once again. All he could do was carry on with his plan. "Sherlock," he said again, just to hear it come from his own mouth.

John turned to face the door, hesitating to fill his lungs one more time with the scent of his long-gone friend. "Sherlock," it seemed as if he could not stop the word now. It had become so powerful in so little time, it was all he could do to resist its physical pull, which longed to sit him in the chair in the living room, or the couch beside the door. He could not stop now, though. He was on a mission.

* * *

The staff was very kind to him, smiling and waving as they did on any other day as he passed through the welcome room. One girl tried to talk to him, but he could not hear her. Only the faint whisper of unsung genius hung in his ears, dancing and shimmering in his mind. It was enough to drive a man mad, at least a weaker man than John.

He climbed the stairs slowly, feeling his weight settle firmly on each step before ascending to the next, almost as if he were afraid that one would suddenly fall through. It was a peculiar experience for him- fighting the instincts that he had been relying on for the many months since Sherlock's death; fear, hope, pain, sadness, all vying for his attention. He imagined them falling down the cement stairs, bouncing lightly around the floors until it reached the bottom. He wished he could get rid of them that easily.

As he went up, the temperature went down. His thick jumper tucked tightly around his dwindling frame was not enough to protect him from the gust of frigid wind that bombarded him, upon opening the door. The wind was so cold that it sucked the air from his lungs, wiping away any sense of comfort as it stole his life right out from under his nose.

John shivered abruptly, pulling back from his reverie. He stepped forward with purpose, reaching the edge of the building quickly. He chanced a look down, caught at slight by the offending height. It was higher than he had imagined.

But that _was _the point, wasn't it?

His eyes closed once more as the excruciating cocktail of emotions surged through his veins. It felt like he was melting from the inside out, every cell deforming and becoming unstable until it finally collapsed on itself, swarming the surrounding blood with its vile presence.

On and on this process went until John felt as if he was made of liquid. His loafers chafed the weather-eroded lining of the building, small pebbles crumbling away from their home on the foundation.

The tears were falling from his eyes in shallow streams. They tinged his skin pink, leaving tracks deeper than any drug ever could.

"_I'm right here, John." _The baritone voice whispered, still managing to give a faint rumble that was far too familiar to John's ears. He knew, then. John stepped up until he had one foot poised in the air, suspended in a brief moment of utter silence before ringing erupted in his ears. He shifted his weight forward, lifting the abandoned foot to meet it mate, sifting smoothly through the air.

"_I'll catch you."_

So John fell.

And fell.

And fell.

And fell.

Until he hit the bottom.

* * *

AN: John Watson, Deceased

WARNINGS: MAIN CHARACTER DEATH, TRIGGER WARNING, EXTREME ANGST, SAD ENDING, DEATH, ETC.

Oh, goodness me, did I forget to put those warnings at the beginning of the story? Darn! ;)

(By the way, I am providing tissues and refreshments for the survivors of this story.)


End file.
